The rock bottom of russian justice

20 November, 2020

Russia has until November 30 to comply with two judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Alexei Pichugin’s case – this was decided in July by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The European politicians believe pardoning Pichugin would enable Russia to at least begin to heed the Strasbourg Court’s recommendations. Journalist and human rights activist Vera Vasilyeva discusses this in more detail on the Radio Liberty website.

At its July meeting, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe set a November 30, 2020 deadline for Russia to implement two judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in Alexei Pichugin’s case. The former Yukos staffer has been held in prison since June 19, 2003, and Memorial Human Rights Centre has long recognized him as a political prisoner. In its 2012 and 2017 judgments, ECHR noted that Pichugin’s trials were held in violation of his right to a fair trial, and that the most appropriate remedy would be a trial de novo or resuming the proceedings – neither of which happened to date. This was pointed out to the Russian authorities numerous times over the years, but the RF Supreme Court Presidium still found no grounds to re-examine Pichugin’s case. Interestingly, one of the Presidium’s sessions (which resulted in the refusal to overturn Pichugin’s verdict and re-examine his case) was held in a courtroom of the Supreme Court building’s basement Floor -4, which evil tongues nicknamed “the rock bottom of justice.”

After Russia’s numerous refusals [to reopen Pichugin’s case], the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe urged Russian authorities to take “individual measures necessary to erase as soon as possible the consequences of the applicant’s convictions resulting from the criminal trials found by the European Court to have been in violation of the Convention.” The European politicians believe pardoning Pichugin would enable Russia to at least begin to heed the Strasbourg Court’s recommendations. Russia has until November 30 to report to the Committee of Ministers on measures taken. In other words, if the Russian President were to pardon Pichugin before November 30, the Council of Europe could consider both ECHR judgments in Pichugin’s case to have been implemented.

Pichugin himself asked Putin for pardon three times while in prison – in 2016, 2018 and 2020, never admitting his guilt (admission of guilt is not required under Russian law). Any prisoner, whether he admits his guilt or not, may ask the President for pardon. In his most recent petition, Pichugin noted that he’d already served around 17 years in prison. He also asked that his mother’s age be considered – she turned 81 this year.

Any convict’s pardon application goes through a long, complex, multi-step process: first the prison administration, then the regional pardon commission, then the local governor, and finally the actual addressee – the country’s President – makes the decision. The Pardon Commission that examined Pichugin’s third request included Orenburg Region’s human rights commissioner Anatoly Chadov, Moscow State Law University’s Orenburg campus director Alexander Kolotov and other officials. It’s worth noting that Chadov is a retired Orenburg Regional Prosecutor, while Kolotov used to head the Russian Investigative Committee’s Orenburg Regional unit. Other members of the Pardon Commission come from similar backgrounds. Is it any wonder that the Commission whose members have such resumés denied the prisoner’s application, and did so unanimously? Be it by coincidence or by design, the denial was issued on June 4 – the exact day the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe noted at its meeting that pardon would be a way of complying with the Strasbourg Court’s judgments. Whether intentional or not, the result was [Russia sticking its] middle finger at Europe and its ideals of human [rights] protection.

Russia used to have a different pardon procedure. The late writer Alexander Borin (Literaturnaya  Gazeta journalist and former pardon commission member during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency) recalled on his Facebook page, for example: “The Commission started operating in March 1992. Its members included [Russian poet and musician] Bulat Okudzhava, [Russian writer] Fazil Iskander, [Russian journalist] Lev Razgon, prominent lawyers, a medical doctor, and a priest – all well‑known, thoroughly decent people with impeccable reputations. We met once a week, every Tuesday. After each meeting, we drafted a Presidential Decree to release convicts or reduce their sentences. It was a great feeling to realize we were the ones with the rare fortune of freeing people from jail. The Presidential Administration’s Pardon Department head who prepared materials for the commission did his best to fortify such sentiments in us. In a country where fear and cruelty reigned for decades, we, the lucky ones, were finally able to grant mercy. If you want to talk about improving the pardon institution, any improvement is only possible when there is a political will for mercy, a corresponding government “contract,” if you will. At the time, the mercy “contract” was entirely President Yeltsin’s initiative, so despite whatever flaws the pardon institution may have had at the time, thousands of prisoners were released every year. Today, the situation is different. In 2012, for example, the total number of convicts pardoned was… 17.” Alexander Borin’s data set continues: during his last two Presidential terms, Putin pardoned an average of five people a year.

So Pichugin wrote to the Russian Federation President but received a reply from regional officials. It’s not quite clear whose decision these officials are communicating, or whether the President is even aware of the motions addressed to him. For this reason, in early October, Alexei Pichugin’s mother Alla Nikolayevna Pichugina, who is religious, sent an open letter to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All of Russia. The letter was published in Novaya Gazeta. Alla Pichugina asked the Patriarch to pass on her son’s pardon request to the President, saying she is convinced her son did not commit the crimes he was charged with. She noted that he kept his faith in God despite being held hostage in a prison.

She did receive a reply to her letter, although it wasn’t from the Patriarch. The reply was signed by priest Alexiy Alekseyev, Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department for Prison Service. The letter says Patriarch Kirill “cannot go beyond the legal field and is not authorized to interfere in litigation and proceedings related to economic, political and other crimes, or influence decisions made by employees of state, public and other institutions that are not subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate.” But the way I see it, Alla Pichugina wasn’t trying to interfere with court decisions issued years ago, or to influence government officials’ decisions. In my view, she was simply asking that information be passed on to the President. And what “political crime” (mentioned in the reply) is being referred to exactly?

Be that as it may, Putin is able to untangle this knot of contradictions related to Russia’s failure to fulfill its international obligations, with an essentially sham pardon procedure. He could do it with a single pen stroke, and it would be totally painless. All Putin has to do is sign Pichugin’s pardon decree, and Russian law doesn’t even require a new petition from the prisoner himself; all that’s needed is the President’s good will. For example, the Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko was pardoned without ever asking. But alas, unlike in Yeltsin’s times that Alexander Borin wrote about, today there is, I believe, a very different [government] “contract” – one for mercilessness.

Source: Radio Liberty